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Special Effects and Graphics – Research and Creation

For pre-production I took on the role of SFX/Graphics. As our film is meant to centre around a video game addiction the script calls for some graphics that makes the audience feel as though they are in a video game. To achieve the video game feel I researched how first person shooting games look and feel to the player and will try and replicate this with the use of Adobe After Effects and Photoshop.

To create my initial concept I looked at examples of real video games. We discussed using video game footage in our film but this would cause a problem with copyright and we wouldn’t be able to use our own ‘game’ footage underneath which is important in moving the story forward.

There were also a number of templates online for computer game Heads up Displays (HUD) but these again would infringe copyright and also had copyrighted logos involved from real computer games.

I decided to use these HUD’s and the templates online to learn how to adapt them for our project.

I used photoshop to create static images such as the text backgrounds and targets, then animated them with text and motion effects in After Effects. I overlaid a grid effect, cartoon and a colour gradient to try and replicate the game colour and high contrast look.

To create the ‘screen chat’ graphic that is displayed on screen I created a screen from scratch again in After Effects and Photoshop. I used images such as Army men and satellites to emphasis the games violent genre and used motion toles to make slight movements to give a more professional feel and make it more interesting for the audience. I incorporated audio effects that hopefully will be used in the final version of the film that sound like a home screen of a video game.

For our gun scene we wanted something highly exaggerated to finally get the ‘Unreal’ message across to the audience. I used rotoscoping to cut enable me to place explosion visual behind the character and again included the HUD effect.